The Former Commodore James Norrington

James had once figured that he'd been a man with many friends. However, he'd never been a man to go drinking in taverns and flirt with maids with the rest of the officers, perhaps this had been a result of his unusually strict military background. During his life James had many companions, they'd been people who would sail into battle with him, people who would follow him to the ends of the earth- or so he thought. In fact, nobody had followed him here, he was very much alone, he was now a disgrace.

Once he thought he saw someone he recognized, some ex-officer in plain clothes, with a giggling maid on each arm. The man stared at him for a few moments, and James watched as their expression turned to shock as they recognized him. The man gawped at him for a while, before finally walking off, as if he never saw a thing. Nobody wanted to be associated with a homeless drunk.

These days, if James wanted to call anything a friend, it would be his bottle. Still, even the bottles emptied over time, and then he'd have to hunt for a new one. Luckily, this was Tortuga, and there was plenty of bottles to go around. He often went through so many bottles that he quickly lost count. Often he would wake up without any memory of what happened the night before. Sometimes he'd wake up with new bruises, or maybe wearing a different shirt, or perhaps no shirt.

One morning he woke up to the familiar smell of a ship. He'd been brought up with ships, and spent most of his life on them, so the smell was almost homely to him. It was dark wherever he was, which was lucky for James' headache, which signaled to him that he must've had a very heavy night. It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, at which point he deduced that he was in the cargo hold.